Shoplifters of the World Unite and Take Nico

Hrafnhilder Arnarddóttir is an Icelandic artist of uncertain age who goes by "Shoplifter" because somehow that is what her name sounds like to Americans. Nico Muhly is an American composer of unflagging energy who is everywhere at the moment and whose greatest work tends to come when he is collaborating. On March 7 & 8 they put together a show at The Kitchen which suggested how much fun classical music can be when people stop treating it like a non-living art form.

Nico released an album in 2006, Speaks Volumes, which was packaged like a pop music album but happened to be filled with chamber music. The feel of the music is intimate and not all that different from a singer-songwriter of the same age and locale (20s, New York) - my favorite piece on it, clear music, would be right at home on a mix CD between Vespertine-era Björk and something by Iron & Wine. The simple fact the Nico doesn't create a distinction between his own music and that of his friends who are in bands means his audience doesn't either - he's one of a few writers of classical music I can think of who could become a bona fide celebrity, and if being profiled in the New Yorker is any indication, he is already well on his way.

Nico has worked with a diverse group of artists - most famously Björk(who I imagine he is tired of people associating him with. More on Björk in a moment), but also Antony Hegarty and the choreographer Benjamin Millepied, as well as a close circle of musicians who are all extremely talented performers, chiefly the fearless violist Nadia Sirota and the bad-ass that is Sam Solomon. You get the sense from these collaborations, which I call collaborations for lack of a better term as the arrangement differs in each case, that Nico's incredible talent is highlighted best when harnessed with someone else's, like Lennon/McCartney except Muhly/Whomever he happens to be working with.

Such was the case with this evening with Shoplifter, whose contribution included a life size white horse with an intricate hair saddle, a net-web thing over the entire percussion battery, a vaguely humanoid-shaped sculpture made of hair and/or fur and/or yarn, and three lovely women lying down so that their hair cascaded freely to become a "human hair harp, " upon which Nico performed. Oh there was also a bunch of human skulls and some latex material. It was like looking at an altar for some unknown ancient ritualistic religion, but also not the least bit threatening or creepy. How does one pull that off I wonder?

The highlight of the evening was for me the performance of "The Only Tune," an epic extension of the ballad "Two Sisters," which is also known as "The Wind and Rain," which I think in Nico's arrangement is one of the most beautiful pieces written in the past 10 years, though I say written loosely as I don't think the singer Sam Amidon reads music, and I am pretty sure that when I heard the piece last year in Zankel Hall it featured different instrumentation....the piece haunted me after that hearing and I was excited at the chance to hear it again.

In the surroundings of the hair and the horse and the skulls and the latex, the piece took on an even more haunting quality - Sam Amidon's voice is truly that of a folkster, and works perfectly with the banjo he plays. He slowly begins piecing together the words of the ballad...there...there were...there were two...there were two sisters....the tune finally comes together, but remains prone to the slight hiccup until the end. There is an extended portion in the middle of the piece where the melody and the accompaniment become two different beasts - Sam's voice soaring, wailing about the the dreadful wind and rain, the sounds around him buzzing and whirling. It is a great visceral moment.

At The Kitchen, the piece ended with Sam getting on top the horse, beating a hidden drum, and plaintively singing, so lightly,

And the only tune that the fiddle would play

Was oh the wind and rain

The only tune that the fiddle would play

Was oh the dreadful wind and rain.

I believe "The Only Tune" will be on Nico's new CD which comes out soon, and I am eager to hear if it maintains its powerful beauty when recorded.

Shoplifter's art worked with Nico's music because it was carefully considered and was not an afterthought. I am aware of organizations that try to dress up classical music with images or lighting as if making something "multimedia" automatically makes it better.

It also worked because the art was not secondary to the music, and Shoplifter's art is arresting. It made me think that (and Nico would probably correct me on this, or at least modify the statement) Icelandic culture is, to Americans at least, an eccentric distillation of everything that is already a bit eccentric and quirky about Scandinavians, and what we think is so much fun about Björk is really just a giddy enjoyment of a specific culture that is a little unfamiliar to us. This is not a dis on Björk, who is a ground-breaking artist who has ventured into territory we'll probably understand better in 10 years, but a commentary on how we perceive her personality - the infamous swan dress, for example, or her coy interviews.

Anyway, it was a cool evening, and stood as an incredible affirmation that interesting and wonderful things can happen and are happening in the world of classical music, though what that term is supposed to mean gets harder to define with each new composer who doesn't think of music in genres and thinks of it simply as art.